Richard Hoiberg

Richard Bernhard Hoiberg was born on July 28, 1952 in Salinas, CA.  A funny story about his birth is that while his mom was pregnant, she went to a doctor to confirm her pregnancy.  The doctor told her that she was not pregnant.  He said that it was only a gall stone.  She went to another doctor and after a few months gave birth to Rick.  She sent an announcement to her first doctor which stated that she gave birth to her gallstone.  He weighed 7 lbs. 7 oz., 20 inches in length, and was named Richard. Rick would be the oldest brother to his younger brothers Ronald and Robert Hoiberg.

Rick attended elementary school, junior high school, and part of high school in Salinas, California.  He graduated in 1970 from Carmel High School in Carmel, California.   

Rick joined the U.S. Navy in 1971.  He was sent to Great Lakes Naval Station for boot camp.  One time while there, he and some buddies decided to go to the movies.  While at the movies, the temperature dropped and there was a snow storm.  When they got back to their car, they found the doors had been frozen shut.  They had to use a blow torch to get the door open.  Since that time, he has hated the cold weather.  Some of the time in the navy was spent during the Vietnam War.  He was an electronic technician radar specialist.  He told a story about having to repair the radar that was way high up on the top of the ship during rough seas.   It can be difficult to be a navy sailor and be constantly motion sick.  During his navy years, he also taught advance electronics.  

While in the navy, he met his wife, Nancy, at the United Servicemen’s Organization (USO) in San Diego. They dated for for a few months before Rick proposed with a song he had written for Nancy. They were married on July 20th, 1974 at Holy Spirt Catholic Church in San Diego.

Three years later they gave birth to their first child, Chris. He was born in La Mesa, CA. 

Rick discovered that he could get a student loan through the Navy but it was not required to be be used for college classes. He then asked Nancy if he could use some of the money to buy an Apple Computer to teach himself how to program. He told Nancy that he would not use all the loan and would use some of it to buy some new furniture.

Rick loved to play softball in his free time while in the Navy. He would continue to play throughout his life. One year he was even lucky enough to have his dream to play not only with his sons but his brother too. During one game, the announcer even remarked that the bases were “loaded with Hoiberg's” when Chris, Joe and Rick were all on base with his brother Rob coming to bat.

A second son, Joe, was born in the Naval Hospital in San Diego, CA on Rick’s birthday July 28th, 1980. Joe was the only gift Rick got for his birthday that year. 

After the navy, he had various other jobs, one of those jobs was teaching at Mission College.  While there, he met someone who got him an interview with Apple Computer.  At that time, there were no degrees in programming for personal computers.  Due to his extreme enthusiasm for the chance to work at his dream job at Apple, there were two different groups at Apple fighting over him.  Needless to say he got his dream job.  All together he worked for Apple about 15 years.  

During his tenure at Apple, Rick and Nancy had their third child, a beautiful little girl named Elizabeth on March 1st, 1983. She was born in San Jose, CA. She would grow up to be daddy’s little girl.

After a brief couple of years working for a start-up modem company, Global Village, Rick returned to Apple. He continued to work at Apple until given the opportunity to work with his son at another start-up, PACE Anti-Piracy, in 1999. 

Rick found his true calling while singing for the South Valley Community Church Promise Heir Men’s Gospel Group. His close friendships with members of the gospel group brought him back to a relationship with the Lord.

On September 21, 2002, Rick welcomed another member to his family when Chris and Tiffany got married in Gilroy, CA. Three short years later, Rick and Nancy became grandparents for the first time when Makayla was born on January 17, 2005. Their second grandchild would be two years later on January 19th, 2007, when Sydney was born.

In 2005, Rick joined eBay at the San Jose campus working on their developer site. During that time, Apple came out with the iPhone. Apple was trying to convince eBay that they should do an eBay app for the iPhone launch.  Rick and another coworker put together a prototype eBay app that Apple and eBay were very excited about.  Rick worked with a mobile development company, that would be later purchased by eBay, in Portland to advance the app to what it is today. In 2012, Rick moved from the Bay Area to Portland, Oregon in order to work more closely with the eBay mobile group.

He also was very supportive of pregnancy resource centers (pro-life centers).  One of the fundraisers he came up with was to put together a CD called Celebrate Life.  Rick contacted some Christian country artist friends and asked them to donate a song for the CD.  By the end of the day, there were 11 songs donated.

Rick continued his evangelism through his music singing for seniors at local long term care facilities in the Bay Area. He also continued to support his love of Christian Country music by working with and supporting other Christian Country artists over the years. His love of Christian Country music brought him to Nashville every year for the Inspirational Country Music Awards.

One of the most important things in is his life was his family. Rick was a supportive older brother, a husband that was loving and giving, a father that a child would be proud to have and a grandfather that was always ready to laugh and sing.

Born: Jul 28, 1952 in Salinas, CA

Died: Dec 12, 2016 in Hillsboro, OR

About: Navy, ICMA